Cappa is a small hydropower generator designed to be used in natural water flows such as rivers and waterways.

Developed by Ibasei, this system uses a special housing which can increase and then recover the energy of flowing water, without using a head of water like conventional hydropower. It also doesn't require earth-moving work to be installed and can be fixed in place along a river or waterway.

"This machine uses a special housing called a diffuser. In this way, it utilizes special technology to increase the rate of water flow through the vanes that extract energy. That energy turns the vanes, and gets converted to electricity by a generator. Then a controller and battery produce 100 V AC electricity at 50/60 Hz that can be used in the home."

"With water flowing at 2.0 m/s, this system can produce 250 Wh. Taking control losses into account, five of these can deliver about 1 kW, so this system can be used as an emergency power supply."

As this system relies on the natural current of the waterway, its uptime is virtually 100%, and the machine itself is 100% recyclable.

"Basically, this is a source of energy for local consumption, so we're not thinking of electricity sale. It can store power like a charging station, so it can handle EVs as well if charging doesn't have to be fast. We also hope it'll be used to vitalize communities, by powering tourist attractions such as illuminations."

"Currently, we're in the final development and testing stage, and we're thinking about releasing this in spring 2013. The vane size depends on the depth, width, and speed of the river, with larger vanes delivering more power. So we'd like to survey each river to see how much energy is available, and assemble a system to match the customer's output requirements. We expect this 250 W model will be priced about the same as a compact car."

In other words to make just 250 watts of power (not Watt hours as they say), this has to be in a stream or river that is Class III (4 to 8 mps water speed). That is considered Difficult or Expert to raft.

Taking control losses into account, five of these can deliver about 1 kW, so this system can be used as an emergency power supply.

In other words to get 1000 watts of power you need 5 of these systems. Compare this to Honda's little EU2000i generator that makes 2000 watts you can carry in one hand and buy new for under $900. Compare this to a typical home backup generator at 12,000 watts and around $3,000 installed.

As this system relies on the natural current of the waterway, its uptime is virtually 100%

Oh bull!

A typical micro-hydro setup has two turbine generator sets, one optimized for low flow rate times and the other optimized for high flow rate times. At the highest flow times both are used. Besides being able to get energy when the flow rate is low, this allows one turbine/generator set to be taken down for yearly service while the other is in use. Nothing, particularly something with lots of moving parts stuck in a river can run without service for very long.

We expect this 250 W model will be priced about the same as a compact car.

Since 5 of these are need to make just 1000 watts of power (not that much) and a compact car might cost $12,000 to $15,000 this install is projected to cost $60,000 to $75,000, to make half as much power as a handheld generator that costs $900???

Fortuna Fortis Paratus“In the house of a wise man are stores of food, wine, and oil, but the foolish man devours all he has.” Proverbs 21:20"We are content with discord, we are content with alarms, we are content with blood, but we will never be content with a master." -Pashtun malik, 1815

Reminds me of the mechanism used for the old Morris Canal in 'Jersey to pull the canal boats up the inclined planes. Water flowing in the canal was diverted into a penstock and dropped onto a turbine which turned a drum around which the tow cable was wound to pull the loaded (70 ton) canal boats uphill on a wheeled cradle-car. Wonderfully elegant engineering for the early 19th century--brought coal from Pennsylvania to Newark/NYC before it was made obsolete by the railroads.

Fortuna Fortis Paratus“In the house of a wise man are stores of food, wine, and oil, but the foolish man devours all he has.” Proverbs 21:20"We are content with discord, we are content with alarms, we are content with blood, but we will never be content with a master." -Pashtun malik, 1815

I can imagine a small ball of discarded monofilament fishing line getting sucked through that thing.

It does seem rather underpowered relative to cost. I can forgive the relative underpowered factor given that it doesn't use head to concentrate the flow. But the small car cost per is ... insane.

Still, it seemeth a bit unfair to compare it to a generator. It appears to me that the raison d'être of most micro hydro setups is 24/7 power to eliminate grid connection. Payback is measured in years. A generator is certainly less costly upfront, but that ignores fuel costs for said generator, that most generators are designed for short term grid replacement, and most generators won't exactly provide 24/7 reliability for years either.

One thing that troubles me about micro hydro with a conventional penstock for head is temperature. How cold can it get before you have freezing problems in the intake, forebay and penstock?

The Morris Canal is an important yet generally unknown bit of history--a great example of the use of water power in the pre-electric/pre-steam era. Hit the search engines for plenty of material on the topic. I live near Plane #9 (the longest and highest) and knew Jim Lee, the canal's foremost historian who lived in the plane-tender's house there; so I have a particular fascination with the long-gone engineering marvel. Plenty of lessons in history that can be useful post-collapse.

Water power doesn't always have to be used to generate electricity. Check out this undershot wheel that uses the flow in the canal to power a washing machine.

BTW: to address CD's concern, the canal was closed in December when it froze over and reopened in the spring. Even closed, the waterway had its uses. ;-))

Seems over engineered to me? Especially in price per kilowatt. Why not multiple paddle wheels or screws attached to a single generator? Especially if you're going to come up with an individualized solution for each customer.

Seems over engineered to me? Especially in price per kilowatt. Why not multiple paddle wheels or screws attached to a single generator? Especially if you're going to come up with an individualized solution for each customer.

But, as they say, armchair quarterbacking is easy...

Since the flow is expected to be low, it will be low power, but with larger units get more power. They seem to be still optimizing the size of the units

Years ago Mrs. Drang and I spent some time with my parents, in Tennessee. We drove up to the Three Valleys of the Wolf, to "York Country."Turns out that, after the war, Alvin owned a mill that is still (more-or-less) standing, which used (IIRC) three vertical axis turbines to drive the mill(s). Turns out you could buy them from Sears Roebuck.

There are lots of low-head micro hydro systems available.....dating back to at least the 1970's, if not earlier. And the advantage to a hydro installation is that the power is pretty much continuous: It may not produce a lot of power, but it can certainly keep a large battery bank topped up.

I thought about installing one in my former place in Idaho, but was very concerned about the EPA deciding I was an eco-terrorist or something.

Do I treat Glocks like I treat my lawn mowers? No, I treat them worse. I treat my defensive weapons like my fire extinguishers and smoke detector - annual maintenance and I expect them to work when needed